Microfluidic devices have revolutionized the field of nucleic acid analysis, particularly analyses involving nucleic acid amplification. Appropriately designed devices can be used as analytical tools to determine whether a particular target nucleic acid of interest is present or absent in a sample, to detect or characterize alleles correlated with diseases or genetic disorders, to conduct genotyping analyses and gene expression analyses, for nucleic acid sequencing and other uses. In one embodiment, the devices can be used in a preparative fashion to amplify sufficient nucleic acid for further analysis.
Reductions in the costs of analysis could be achieved by designing reusable microfluidic devices, particularly reusable elastomer-based microfluidic devices. However, there are several barriers to reusing such devices. One limitation relates to the sensitivity of nucleic acid analyses, in which a single nucleic acid molecule can be detected. Thus, even a tiny amount of contamination from a previous round of analysis can render a reused device unreliable.
These diagrams are merely representative and not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. It will be appreciated that the exemplary fluidic circuits as shown in the drawings do not necessarily include all the valves that will be used in a working device. Depending on the specific configuration selected a working device may use fewer valves than illustrated.